'Bad idea' at Long's Gardens won't advance, Boulder says

City caught backlash after floating 'concept' for flood work on historic urban farmland

By Alex Burness

Staff Writer

Posted:
03/22/2018 08:07:13 AM MDT

Updated:
03/22/2018 08:07:43 AM MDT

Peter Maciulaitis prepares his garden plot at the Hawthorn Community Gardens in Boulder on March 16. (Paul Aiken / Staff Photographer)

Jeff Arthur, Boulder's utility director, said that a flood mitigation project at the beloved Long's Gardens site — something that, even in concept, angered hundreds of residents — is "not a viable option" and will not be pursued.

In their consideration of future flood risk along Twomile Canyon Creek and Upper Goose Creek in north Boulder, Arthur and his staff recently presented a memo to the city's Water Resources Advisory Board with a series of different options for mitigation work.

One of those options was a flood project on the Long's Gardens property off Broadway at Hawthorn Avenue. Long's, at 25 acres, is the most prominent slice of urban farmland remaining in the city. It's also host to multiple nonprofits, and the site welcomes an estimated 18,000 visitors every year.

The city caught enormous and swift backlash last week from citizens once rumors of a repurposing of Long's started to spread, and this week, the City Council pressed Arthur about why city staff ever considered an option so obviously "politically unpalatable," as Councilwoman Mary Young phrased it.

Arthur said it was important for citizens to understand that a flood project at Long's was never a "proposal," but rather an early "concept" to be reviewed along with a slew of others.

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"The word choices really made a big difference," he said. "When I think of a proposal, it would be something we were actually recommending and suggesting ... and that really wasn't the case here."

He assured the council that, "We're trying to find ways to be more thoughtful about how we describe things."

Following conversation with the owners of the Long's property, and in light of the backlash, which was on display during a well-attended Water Resources Advisory Board meeting on Monday, Arthur said that city staff is no longer viewing a project at Long's as a realistic option worthy of consideration by staff or the board. The board will work later this year to refine mitigation options along the two creeks in question.

But, Arthur said, it was important to city staff to give the Long's idea some "daylight," if only to confirm that messing with the current function of that land would be as widely unpopular as one might have expected.

"To take it off the table, you have to first acknowledge it," Arthur said.

Council members pushed back a bit on the approach staff took in this case.

Councilman Bob Yates suggested that the Long's option did not, in fact, need to see daylight.

"There's an infinite number of bad ideas," Yates said. "I would ask staff to exercise discretion in taking all bad ideas off the table. This was a bad idea from the start.

"You had to know the community was going to react badly to this."

Yates said he's counted 160 emails voicing opposition to the Long's option, and zero in favor of it.

But if the option was never under serious consideration, as Arthur said, then the city should have explained that more clearly to citizens, Mayor Suzanne Jones argued.

"I think we have to speak much more in English, and the difference between concept and proposal is not far enough," she said.

Admitted Arthur: "We missed the boat on the nuance of articulating our intent."

When the Water Resources Advisory Board gets to the point of developing a recommendation for flood work along Twomile Canyon and Goose creeks, Arthur said, city staff won't present Long's as an option. The board, he said, has similarly indicated no interest in further pursuit of the unpopular idea.

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